Its a new year and with that, many new startup ideas. I took a little trip to NYC Mobile Startup Weekend 2012 on January 20 at Microsoft’s Office to check out the mobile scene and maybe help a project go from concept to reality.
After pitching a potential project I began to talk to people about their project and ideas. A few people were interested in my idea, but then I decided that I was not going to go forward with my idea. Since its not something that people would see as a “business” which is the key to winning these things.
I went home and came back the next morning feeling out which team might be worth joining. The weather was awful and I was beginning to wonder if I had made the right decision by leaving my bed.
After talking to all the groups again, I realized that they where all lacking a key element in their concepts; how to make money. I began to rally some people together to develop my own project and then towards noon, I began talking to a guy named Keith Fiore who had an idea that seemed to make sense but was not very scalable at first sight. It had to do with selling stuff at golf courses. After talking to him I realized that in reality he was trying to tackle a problem in the current market, how to sell more via the mobile phone. After sharing my ideas with Keith we realized that we where on to something so I scrapped my project and continued working with Keith. Kerry Craig also joined our team and the zenplaya team was formed.
After lots of talking and strategy talks we decided that zenplaya was to be presented as a platform for mobile commerce triggered by location. In other words, a platform that serves offers according to the venue that you are physically located at. This “narrow-casting” is a very clever idea because it allows the advertising of products to be served with-in context. And the zenplaya app allows for a one-click purchase with various delivery or pick-up options.
I developed the UX (user experience) for the MVP (minimum viable product) along with the Interface and the design. The UX was very important to me not only to figure out the architecture of what is needed but also to make sure that people navigate through the information flawlessly. I printed out a few screens with the information wireframed and tested the interactions with real people. I call this rapid prototyping with user feedback:
Once the wireframes and UX was satisfactory, I masterminded the MVP as a flash prototype, which we used for the presentation of the concept.
After all 17 teams presented their ideas, the cream rose to the top and zenplaya came out as the winner of the NYC Mobile Startup Weekend! All that tedious work paid off.
